One thing I forgot to say near the end. I am not a "lore expert" when it comes to Undertale. If there's anything in this video that is objectively incorrect, please feel free to correct me. Edit: Many commenters have corrected me on Papyrus' bossfight and how you can't die during it. I appreciate it but There's no need to correct me on that anymore 😂😂
Honestly, I would've just looked at all the different neutral endings, then examining the morality of how you got there. Did you get the ending where you killed Undine? Well, you've SEEN how psychotic that fish lady acts. It doesn't matter that she's shouting about justice for monsters and is called a heroine by all the monsters, you're a small child and she's a knight throwing spears at you like she's Vergil and they're his summoned swords. If she knew about it she would definitely try throwing out a judgement cut and yell 'scum' at you. Undine is a walking fight or flight vibe check and she can deny you the ability to run.
9:39 WOAH WOAH WOAH, PAPYRUS IS THE ONE FIGHT THAT CAN NEVER KILL YOU! NOT EVEN TORIEL'S FIGHT IS THAT SAFETY PROOFED! HE WILL DROP HIS ATTACK THE SECOND YOU FALL INTO 1 HIT KILL RANGE AND 'CAPTURE' YOU BY TAKING YOU TO HIS LAUGHABLY EASY TO ESCAPE SHED! HELL HE EVEN STOPS TRYING ALTOGETHER AFTER 3 CAPTURES AND ESCAPES!
9:45 The only error I found in this video so far: Papyrus is the only monster Frisk encounters that can *never* kill them! Papyrus lowers Frisk down to 1 HP, and captures them by putting them in his shed. Papyrus also willingly heals Frisk up, so he does show that he does have a lot of restraint.
@PenniNanaNanaBanana-Astra to be fair, even if humans have really low hp, they have far higher defense. Frisk with a plastic knife can deal 30 damage to toriel at lv 1, while monsters in the core who are trained mercenaries deal single digit damage unless you have really high lv at which point frisk can take many hits from them.
It’s still a part of the true pacifist, you are not killing at any chance you don’t have to. Even then, at the end you aren’t even the one who killed asgore.
Actually, something not really covered in the neutral route often (because most people don't know about it) is that, if you go through the neutral route while killing a few monsters, flowey tells you "if you get through the whole underground without killing a SINGLE monster, I WON'T kill the king." But here's the thing. You still don't have to do true pacifist for this. Meaning, if you just spare everyone and befriend nobody, you can get to the end of the game and have Asgore not die!!! Right?? ......right? Wrong. If you do this and attempt to spare Asgore, he will recognize that keeping you trapped in the underground is cruel, and he will KILL HIMSELF so that you can take his soul, and then flowey destroys his soul. It doesn't really matter if you spare or kill him, he was going to die no matter what. He never really wanted to kill you, he just wanted the fight to be over.
The worst ending you can get is killing everyone except for glad dummy. Everyone everyone loves is dead and glad dummy will eventually become to depression with its coming hatred for the body it fused with.
Frisk would basically be like “oh hey these guys don’t want to fight anymore” and spare them, or “oh crap these guys are trying to kill me” and kill them
I can't blame Frisk for accidentally killing the first froggit as its a new environment to them and probably reacted out of pure fear not realizing they could spare the froggit. Undyne is completely reasonable to kill/ not give water to, that monster is literally hunting you down and not giving you an option to surrender, Mettaton is throwing their life into mortal danger and makes it clear that they have ill intent towards Frisk, Asgore striaght up doesn't let you spare him, meaning Frisk has no other option than to kill him. Flowey is a no brainer, he's far too dangerous to be left alive and terrorize the underground, yes they're a deeply traumatized child who was unfairly hunted by humans, but he's shown he's indifferent to commit mass murder and extremely dangerous and willing to harm others if given the option
Fair point, for Asgore though, I think it is somewhat better if you spare him after winning That doesn’t make killing him unjustified, but a bit lower on the moral scale
@@nghiaoantrong899 Asgore also has the mindset where he feels guilt and wants Frisk to finish him off if he loses. If you spare him and he isn’t murdered, then he commits self-unalive and renders your choice meaningless. (Censored because of youtube) It’s a lose-lose situation where he can’t be spared ever, because his guilt can only drive him forward or to the grave.
Self-defense is not always morally justifiable. Frisk's soul would free potentially thousands of monsters (idk if they ever say how many, at least more than one) of equal worth. If it's between Frisk and even just two monsters, Frisk is not morally justified disregarding any further context that may change the math, 2>1
13:30 Another error. No matter what's the route, even if you're in genocide, Muffet gets a letter from the spiders in the RUINS saying you never hurt a single spider and then (even if you didn't buy a donut) she spares you, and if you still try giving money, she refuses.
While she has the same spare method as papyrus there is 2 key differences 1 she is actually trying to kill you 2 unlike papyrus you can kill her before the letter arrives 3 she is a morally far worse character than most of the cast she is literally a cannibal both making treats of spiders but in genocide even regretting not turning alphys into a donut when she came to warn her to evacuate
This doesn't really make a difference in the morality of killing her because this happens if you decided not to fight back for a long enough period of time (you would have already been justified to fight back) Also my point was that it's possible to skip the boss entirely but the method is so obscure and insensible that you shouldn't be expected to take it, so this moment in particular is not an error :)
@@WyvrnOnYT I used Fight most of the time in the buffet battle on my first playthrough and I still got the Spare. In my opinion, it's morally wrong to kill her if she spares you.
Not to mention she refused to evacuate on genocide and is the entire reason why hotland and the core are accesible AND have killable monsters in them @@danielgonzalez-vm5lj
It's straightup impossible to say if the neutral route is morally good or bad, because your actions can range from killing nobody but not hanging out with undyne, to killing literally everybody except one enemy that is required to continue the geno route
This may be a random enemy to bring up, but killing Vulkin seems a bit more morally questionable than other monsters. I'd still say it's justified since your life is still in danger, but it's made clear throughout the fight that Vulkin is not trying to hurt you, they're just stupid. Vulkin thinks their attacks heal you. Killing Vulkin would still fall under self-defence, but it would be a little worse than killing someone like Doggo or Migosp.
@@chess123mate Haha! NO! They deliberately stated that Vulkin is just stupid. Only them. It's a bit weird for them to explicitely state that if everyobne does that.
@@dragondastan4763 most monsters don't know you're human. look at bratty and catty, papyrus, the snowdin shopkeeper, and basically every regular monster besides the ones in the core. if they knew you were human, why would they be friendly with you if it was the king's orders that every human dies? also i'm not counting MK, they're a child and probably didn't even think humans were real
9:39 You can *_not_* die to Papyrus. He truly does nonlethally capture you, just as he claimed, and then put you inside of a jerry-rigged jail inside of his shed. … he made the bars too wide, like he did at the bridge before Sans' sentry point, though.
I think trying to kill Nabstablook after willingly engaging it is ... questionable. At least on the first turn, I don't see a reason to not try talking to it. Also, something to consider about the self defence thing is that you can attack enemies until they don't want to fight anymore.
@@angelapuzzleYou may also accidentally go too far and end them anyway. Assuming a more “human” play through where you don’t save scum everything, that’s already being locked in Neutral.
My argument against your point is that even if they allow you to spare them once you beat them up they on the contrary would never spare if frisk is on low hp. torial notices when your hp is low and starts purposefully missing, and Pap lowers you to exactly one before capturing you. But other monsters don’t do this, they have no mercy so thus I don’t feel too bad about them getting a taste of that same medicine.
@@legalza0843 Well, the monsters want your soul, right? So they can escape the underground that humans trapped them in. There isn't really a way to accomplish their goal peacefully. You'd probably just get killed later after being captured by Papyrus (maybe just not by HIS hand)
2:48 Sans actually can’t remember. He is just very good at examining body language and he knows of the existence of resets. Though never experiencing one.
@@WyvrnOnYT no, as I said before he is EXTREMELY good at reading body language. Hence why Asgore would make him the judge. Since he is extremely good at estimating events and emotions based on the body.
In the video it says nothing about remembering. Sans is AWARE of resets (as implied by his “timelines starting and stopping” dialogue) he just doesn’t remember anything
@@Bengt2509…? Well, one the creator literally responded thinking he remembered and 2 “these” implies he remembered the resets in the creators context if it was just “aware of resets” then you would be correct with your statement. And the creator even implies they are not very knowledgeable in the lore of Undertale.
Well, unlike the player and Flowey, Sans doesn’t know what happened in past timelines, eg. before a reset or loading your save. But Sans does know that resets are a thing, and he knows that you have control of the timeline due to being a human. This is also why Sans is so “lazy”, or rather, depressed. It’s tough for him to do his best and try to achieve things because he knows that all of his effort can just be undone at the whims of the player, or Flowey before Frisk fell into the Underground.
I think it depends on how you play the neutral ending- like fighting monsters isn’t wrong, most of them are trying to kill you or doing something that would lead to you dying. I think where it becomes morally wrong to fight on neutral is when an enemy either starts to spare you or tries to run away. Like killing Undyne is justified, but because on neutral you can never kill papyrus before he stops fighting, killing him is wrong
Random enemies can be justified as self defense(except whimsun). Toriel can be justified as she does ask us to prove us we are strong enough to survive, imply we have to fight her. You can't kill Papyrus before he spares you so Papyrus is unjustified as you have to attack after he surrenders. Undyne, Muffett, Mettaton and Asgore literally want your soul so that's justified. Flowey attempts to kill you immediately. Attempts to kill you over and over again until he's satisfied while taunting you which definitely counts as strange and unusual forms of torture on top of murder. Flowey is 100% justified. Keep in mind this is just my opinion. If you disagree that's okay.
14:35 I never really understood why people say this about Napstablook, Mettaton, Papyrus or Sans. it's not like Sans and Papyrus are UNDEAD CORPSES, they're skeleton-type monsters. so no, they're not already dead. same with Napstablook, it's not like he's the soul of some human, he's just a ghost monster, a type of monster. and Mettaton isn't a robot, he's a ghost possessing a robotic vessel created by Alphys. I know you don't use that as an argument for why killing them is okay, but you mentioned it as if it's a fact, so I wanted to correct that, is all. love the video btw.
Would be cool to see if this is also true for yellow, especially considering clovers naive but noble intentions making even its geno route sympathetic, even if morally wrong
Decibat is iffy for you to kill, as he engaged the fight but he's only asking for you to be quiet. You are following Dalv around, and he's asking you to leave him alone, so I don't think killing him is justifiable. You can't kill Martlet. El Bailador is iffy, as he engages the "fight" but he's just asking for you to play DDR with him. Starlo is iffy, as he spends the entire wild east bonding with you, and it's clear he's not in a good state when you fight him, but he does outright say he's going to kill you several times. Guardner is justifiable, he's binded you with vines and is saying that it's going to kill you. Axis is questionable, because you are trespassing and he's trying to simply apprehend you, but he does say that he's going to kill you several times. You can't kill flowey in neutral.
a lot of monsters are trying to kill you all the time so as much as u love all the characters, if you're a random kid in a place full with monsters that say they need your soul then HOW can you not be terrified?
Yeah, terrified, and what do kids do when they’re terrified? Usually they ran away. Let’s say if Undertale is real, would Frisk ACTUALLY have enough willpower to actually KILL anyone instead of running?
@@StarMisura plus, through the power of *d e t e r m i n a t i o n ✨✨* you can literally not die because it's not determination itself, is de-termination (same as when Frisk re-fuse during the final pacifist fight). It's like an adult play fighting with a child or a small animal, Idk if I explained myself well here.
Can’t you just like- run away tho I think assuming a kid will attempt to kill in self defense in the first place is presumptuous, if I’m a kid in this environment my first instinct is to run…
I do think we should factor in the fact Frisk can undo their own death if they fall. So no enemy is a true threat to Frisk (Except Flowey) so kill Flowey if you wish.
Not really, you could reset the universe a billion times to dodge a bullet, but for that matter, they aren't entitled to you to go your way to save them when they are trying to kill you. It is something that falls in a moral gray, it is not like seeing a person in danger and not saving them, here they are seeking to harm you.
@@mado-wh4jv Not entitled to be helped but still Sans makes a good point that if you have the amount of power and knowledge Frisk does you may have to consider that you have a responsibility to use it. Of course, in game and out of universe you can say: No, Frisk doesn’t have to spare enemies just because they are not truly in danger (Outside of the Flowey fight) but it should be considered.
@@SuperBatSpider Something else to consider...Dying hurts. For a child to die painfully, come back and spare their murderer is a lot to ask. And how many times will this happen with in a run? Guess it's a good thing they're so determined
Remember Chara is not a demon people! We need more people who understand this. If you kill everyone YOU killed everyone. Chara only helped, even if you do a few genocide routes Chara even shows disgust.
Yes, but in the sense of "remember this day the rest of your poor, pathetic life and live. Live and engrave in your heart that you're here today because I wanted to." Even tho Flowey WAS Asriel, he's NOT Asriel anymore so no sympathy nor fucks given towards that psycho flower xd
I don't agree with the moster kid part. Undyne is literally moving to you trying to kill you and it's not like that it's your fault that monster kid tripped so Frisk trying to escape would make sense. Basically not risking your own life to safe another one makes sense for me especially because its expected that monster kid gets saved anyway by Undyne.
Correct answer is that it depends on who you aren’t a pacifist with. Killing some one like undyne, mettaton, or the core enemies is 100% justified self defense
I wouldn’t say mettaton is tho, I have a feeling he wasn’t actually trying to kill frisk but more was set up as a reason to prop up alphys. Alphys literally gets exposed at the end of the core for setting up stuff to oppose frisk and who says they didn’t tamper with mettaton? Mettaton was probably only attacking frisk and doing things with them because it got him views and was good for show buisness. And we aren’t even considering the fact alphys trusted you and you murdered mettaton who was there friend causing them to commit suicide later in the run.
10:08 last time I checked papyrus cannot actually kill you. He always leaves you at 1 hp and just takes you to his garage to a supposed cell where the bars are too wide and the door is unlocked. Even if you lose to him 2 more times he just lets you go even without beating him.
What I've always wondered: If your SOUL shatters into pieces when you die, how are those who are trying to kill you for your SOUL going about taking it when they kill you? Do they just... sweep up the pieces and deliver them to Asgore?
I think the whole SOUL break animation is just for the looks. I mean it would be pretty lame if everything disappeared and just left the SOUL alone on the screen before the Game Over appears. Maybe Toby could have made it so on Game Over we see the SOUL being trapped in a container (like Asgore's), but I feel like it wouldn't give the same effect.
Froggit says "Monsters wont want to fight you when their hp is lowered" or something along the lines. Clearly, attacking when you can spare the enemy for good is the immoral thing to do
That Froggit you are talking about is the same first Froggit you encounter with Toriel. And as stated in the video, it is ok to kill him. And if you kill him, he won't show up to tell you what you are reffering.
@@merphinsky5193 What about what TORIEL says? She tells you to NOT fight enemies, that she will sort the mess up right before the room you encounter that Froggit. Just stall. And after that, you will have Froggit tell you if you hurt monsters enough they won't fight you anymore. And conveniently, Froggit appears ONCE Toriel leaves.
@@KasecTheTravelerThat Froggit is weaker than the other Froggits. You can oneshot this one with a Stick while the others can't be oneshot. Furthermore this is Frisks first real combat encounter after Flowey. It is not unreasonable trying to fend it off with a stick. Flowey a literal Flower can bring you down to 1HP with one single bullet and survived a fireball straight into his face. It's not wrong to at first assume that all monster are as strong as Flowey or Toriel and therefore attack it in the heat of the moment. Also Flowey literally says that in this world it's kill or be killed. This is an unknown place for humans with unknown inhabitants and if Flowey is the first one that you encounter it's not unreasonable that you attack a Frog monster that innetiates combat with you - regardless of what Toriel has said before.
@@selena3467I think Frisk’s actions could be justified based on the INTENTIONS. The last hit is stronger than the others, so if you *tried to* prove to Toriel that you’re strong enough by lowering her HP, but accidentally actually killing her, it could maybe be justified since it’s an accident and she told you to prove to her? It’s like an accident in training. So we can’t really count it if we don’t know Frisk’s intentions
Muffet is a weird one, we're supposed to go all "aww, what a cute friendly monster, she only... attacks... and kills... people who don't pay money to her spider charity..." and yeah, what can I say, she's literally just a mugger.
Oh no you can absolutely murder mettaton, robot in body but that is still a monster, since you might not know that’s a ghost in a robot body Alphys made mettaton for… mettaton (the ghost) then using mettaton (the robot) she convinced asgore she could make a robot with a monster soul but really it was a ghost possessing a robot giving it a soul, once a ghost is fused with a body it can be killed like any other monster, we see this with mad dummy in the genocide route as they turn into glad dummy having fused to their body and can now be killed, this also applies to mettaton Morally? Yeah frisk wouldn’t know, mettaton has purposefully hid his life behind him and tried to erase all the evidence of him being a ghost, the most you can find is the key which leads to his old house but even then it’s not clear Frisk killing mettaton would be justified as it would be like breaking a machine that had gone haywire and is now dangerous, you don’t think about it too much cause it’s just a robot, but even in the externally off chance frisk did learn this was a living person that isn’t bound by code and can’t be rebuilt as their soul would break once they die, mettaton still admits that someone has to die, that he would rather kill you thank let all of humanity die, and that he hired people to murder you, at the end of the day that’s just not okay and knowing he isn’t just a robot doesn’t change that
Btw Napstablook, Mettaton(the ghost), Papyrus, and Sans aren’t UNDEAD humans or something, they’re some TYPE of monsters. They resembles the characteristics of ghosts and skeletons, but they were never dead (like… they were not humans who died and came back in a different form)
But Mettaton doesn’t have a thirst for blood thats a lie from Alphys so she can pretend save Frisk from fake dangers Mettaton says he doesn’t want to harm humans before the fight
@@matthew_wagner813 yeah but he still very clearly says he wants to kill you so he can get to the surface and that he's okay with it, like obviously he doesn't want to kill a human he likes humans but he's sorta just like "yeah this is my plan, i hired people to kill you but i guess i gotta do it myself! alphys was putting you in fake danger but i'm actually gonna kill you"
I'd say that while Frisk would attack if they see it as self-defense, they're just a kid. I doubt they would want to kill anyone assuming they have no reason to. This logic leads me to believe that Papyrus is spared by Frisk, as he specifically states he's sparing you, and at that point Frisk no longer has a good reason to kill Papyrus at all.
Tbh, i dont think killing tori is justified for a few reasons 1: she actively *avoids* killing frisk when they're fighting. Although she can accidentally kill Frisk, she doesn't straight up attempt to. Plus simply challenging someone in a fight doesn't justify killing. 2: tori actually has a good reason for keeping frisk at the ruins, as according to her most of the other monsters would kill frisk, which actually is true. So it becomes less like tori holding frisk against her will. And more like tori trying to prevent frisk from getting yourself murdered. Kinda like a mother trying to stop a child from running into a busy high-way. Which kinda makes killing tori, the furthest from justified. Also tori litterally saves frisk from death so yeah.. its straight up impossible for frisk to justify killing toriel. Unless She considers a child killing a mother for trying to stop said child from doing something dangerous justified.
The thing that made me kill Toriel was that I was trying to get her health low enough to spare her. In a real situation, it would be "fight enough to let her know you're strong enough to survive". However, the final hit does way more damage than all the other hits, which took me by surprise. You could think of it as a training accident. Though what Frisk intended matters. Is it an intentional kill, or an accidental kill? That changes pretty much everything. That's what makes these questions so complicated, it's not JUST about the action, it's about why they chose that action in the first place as well.
@@FastKnight401 I actually think Genocide is a perfect supporting argument for your point! In a blind neutral run, Frisk might think that FIGHTing until her health gets low is the solution to spare Toriel after finding that ACTing does nothing, with that final, stronger attack doing more damage being a genuine surprise to them, which to me makes it seem accidental. Meanwhile in the Genocide route, you kill Toriel in one swing, which I would definitely call intentional.
I think what happens with Toriel mostly is that it feels justified to _fight back_ : she's testing you, so you try to show her you've got what it takes, hoping she'll acknowledge you. The problem then is that the game intentionally uses crits to fuck with you in that case. The equivalent of "one punch hit wrong and now our enthusiastic sparring session has a body count".
I did a run and when I beat asgore I spared him and he told me to kill him anyway beacuse he said “I’m sorry but we just can’t have a happy ending, take my soul and leave this place.” And when flowey takes the souls he just says “let’s get this over with” and puts me in the end credits without fighting omega flowey
One thing I like to point out is the Snowman/Snowman Piece interaction. While it's technically not part of the combat or neutral route, it is a rather personal bit of morality. You have the option to take the snowman piece all the way to the end, but you can also eat or drop the piece in front of the snowman. After doing it a second time, he'll never forgive you. This even gets dialogue if you've done a True Pacifist afterwards, to reflect on your actions.
I am so happy you point out that just because people like the genocide route, doesn't mean they are terrible people. People on the internet really can't seem to grasp this concept and immediately bombard you with things like "you are such a bad person, you should scooter ankle"
A big thing people fail to consider is that you can reset if you die IN UNIVERSE. Yes, normally them trying to kill you would be wrong, but they not only have a valid reason to do so, they also will never actually succeed. This is why you're judged harsher than you would be if resetting wasn't an in-universe mechanic. That's why I would consider Clover's neutral route more justified, Clover was told they can get reset if they die, but since they don't remember resets, they have no actual reason to believe Flowey.
Well, it seems that Clover can remember reloads (read: unalives) that are performed by Flowey ("..." "..." "Why?"), and retain some knowledge of previous resets (as shown in Flowey's boss battle), but can't directly SAVE or LOAD until the end of the Vengeance Route.
14:14 While that is true, right before his battle he reveals that it was never his intention to kill you or anything, just that Alphys made him pretend to so that she can "save" you from him. He also says that he just wants to be a star, and even loves humans. But it's really hard to tell whether it's immoral to kill him since when he's doing his grand finale he does throw bombs at you..
@@timlwry morality never changes. Has it ever been morally right to murder someone without cause? Will it ever be? No. Because the immorality of taking someone's life is universally known and felt and has been since humanity's beginning.
@@lucashampton3486 wdym it never changes??? It was morally acceptable to have slaves centuries ago It was morally acceptable to burn "witches" Are you daft???
Something I love about the neutral route is the closure for the children's human souls who were murdered before you by supposedly Asgore (although there are hints they could have died before reaching him). It is satisfying as an ending the fact that once you get to fight flowey they are the ones to answer your call as they are the only ones who would realistically be sympathetic to your on self-defense. So you get to sort of avenge them and free them from their limbo.
Counterpoint: you can flee for no consequence in the ruins, as you will always get away, to stand and fight when to flee is an option is morally wrong according to some moralities
I'd argue Greator Dog was justified because he always looked nice and never said they wanted to kill you and just look happy and you need to do normal dog tricks that any other person would know to spare them so Frisk could understand that pretty nicely but yeah other that and the Toriel part great video!
I'd like to say there *are* some monsters which I consider it's morally wrong to kill, like whimsum and vulkin. It's clear that whimsum encounters you by accideny and does NOT want to kill you, but only to defened herself and keep you away cuz she's scared. Her attacks don't even aim at you so the only way you can die is by intentionally getting hit, best thing to do here would be run or spare her. And with vulkin, she just wants a hug, but ends up unintentionally hurting you in the proccess, like a playful dog being too brute with a child. As before, the solution is sparing or flee same goes for temmie btw
Is that so? I don't believe the added context matters though because this dialogue has nothing to do with previous routes of the game, and only has to do with the choices you made at the ruins. I think regardless of whether or not this dialogue requires an aborted genocide route, my opinion would stay the same.
That’s not true. This dialogue is triggered when you spare Toriel but have killed any monsters in the Ruins. He says something different if you killed Toriel, then reloaded and spared her, though, even if you have killed other monsters. This is something that most players do on their first playthrough, so that might be why you thought this was exclusive to an aborted geno route.
@@MutedAndReported3032 Ah, that's my bad, I've only ever really seen it in the context of aborted genos, personally. Forgot about the requirement just being exp + SPARING Toriel.
I'm going to give my own thoughts. This is going to be a long comment. I'm not entirely sure about Toriel since she does, in fact, start the battle, but she also avoids killing you. You can die to her, but it's rather difficult, especially if you aren't actively trying to do it. However, since we're assuming it's Frisk's first playthrough and how often first-time players don't understand how to spare her, I'd say it's justified. Papyrus is completely unjustified. But I really like how the game handles him in terms of judging you because the judge, Sans, obviously doesn't like it when you kill his brother, so he'd judge you more harshly. But the game justifies this harsher judgment by making it literally impossible to kill him by accident, therefore removing any possible justification for killing him. By the way, in the game, Napstablook and Mad Dummy are both shown to use they/them and not he/him. It's very easy to make this mistake, but I still want to let people know if they get it wrong. Mad Dummy also later switches to using she/her in certain versions of the game (specifically Switch and Xbox, but yes, this is still canon). Also, Mettaton is even more confusing because, although the only way to learn this is by getting into a secret area in Waterfall, he is a ghost, not a robot. That's why you gain EXP from killing him. Also, he doesn't want to kill humans; he wants to entertain them. To do that, he'd need to absorb your soul and go to the surface. I'd still say it's justified, though, because he is rather clear about his intentions to kill you and take your soul. Finally, Asgore. He literally asks you to unalive him. If you don't, Flowey will. If you stop Flowey from removing him, he will commit self-die. In a neutral route, there is no way to spare him.
Its definitely very sad to kill toriel, especially considering her relationship with sans. But i do kinda agree that attacking her is mostly justified. She is trying to trap you there with her so you cant go back home. If you think about it toriel in a way is being a little selfish here, while yes she is saying "its for your own good" and she wants to protect you. You have a right to want to return to your home from here and toriel is trying to force you to stay with her.
Trying to kill Nabstiblook is not justifyed, because Frisk was the agressor in that situation. I would also say it's probly best to spare Whimson, and others that you can spare on the first turn.
I think that killing Papyrus was unjustified since no matter how many times you get hit PAPYRUS WON'T KILL YOU, he brings you down to 1 HP and then "captures" you so he can finally live out his lifelong dream.
This is probably something that was already said, but it is actually impossible to die to papyrus. Everytime you reach 1 hp, he will capture you and put you in his shed. He has absolutely zero intention to actually kill you, and even offers to quit fighting you if you lose to him enough times
I don’t think it’s morally wrong to kill Papyrus. Especially if, say, you end the fight with like 3HP. Imagine if some guy kept talking about capturing you, brought you close to death, and now you’re morally expected to spare him because “He’s worn out”. That’s ridiculous. We also know Papyrus is stubborn and resilient. There’s nothing stopping him from getting rest and continuing to hunt us down “for the Royal Guard” except for our preconceived notions as a gamer of knowing that the boss fight is the probably the final time we’ll have an altercation with him. (And yes, Papyrus will never kill the human, but they don’t know that) And then you are in no way morally obligated to help Monster Kid. Undyne is literally right there and to help them is to move extremely close to her. You’re essentially jumping in front of a bullet (or spear) to save someone you met just two minutes ago and, again, Undyne is right there. She’s just as able to save Monster Kid as you are. I still liked the video, despite these disagreements because props to you for posting an Undertale video where you say there’s nothing wrong with killing Toriel.
Papyrus was going to bring undying there to kill you so probably best if you killed him also Papyrus is on that Dan Schneider shit Bro went on a date with a child that's probably not even in the double digits💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 do not let this man anywhere near Society
One thing that I should point out is that you can abort the Genocide Run to become a Neutral Run at any point in the game. However, I would think these routes are still morally wrong to a degree, especially if you abort the Route in Hotland. There's a unique ending for it, but one thing I should point out is that Frisk still has an urge to kill the monsters during the New Home segment as a smile appears above the encounters. I just thought it was a bit interesting.
but with the previous conversations "im gonna capture you and have the royal guards get you" which means death and another war that's fair game to kill
@@Linktheangel1993 I mean, if Hitler sends his dumbest SS who think they're going to take you to a sea holiday resort, are you obligated to go along with them to not hurt their feelings? I really think it boils all down to fighting in defence, and when it's not needed, stop. If someone lets you go and isn't going to be a threat any more, spare them. As long as they try to kill you, or capture you, they're fair game.
The entire point of Frisk it's that they are a representation of the player, it isn't a regular human, it's you And by that perspective, neutral makes so much sense, we are learning the game, and it's the first time we have an RPG were you can spare enemies, we don't know the concept of genocide and pacifist routes, maybe we don't know how to proceed with certain characters in order to spare them, or we killed them by accident. My first route was neutral because my English wasn't the best, and I was getting used to the spare mechanic
It depends on which monsters you kill Most monsters unjustly attack you,so defending yourself is the moral action,however you can cause enough damage to a monster to a point where they're too weak to fight and then spare them,that's what i did on my first playthrough,on my second playthrough i killed every monster i encountered except for the main bosses,this would be less moral than just weakening them and then sparing them or running away,however it could still technically be considered an act of self defense because they did attack you first with intentions to kill you,however killing Toriel or Papyrus can most certainly be considered an evil action because neither of them had any intentions of actually causing lasting harm to you,but of course Frisk doesn't know that so I think even that could be considered not entirely evil or amoral...
Tories I agree, Papyrus not so much. He's being a very dumb enforcer but still an enforcer for the king that wants to kill you and take your soul (and possibly use it to destroy humanity, though come on, I don't believe Asgore would actually do that). He's still trying to confine you. Would it be evil to use deadly force in defence from a kidnapper just because they are trying to capture you alive?
Something to note about Papyrus, he only knocks you out if you actually die to him. He even leaves water for you in case. while it might not be known on a first playthrough of a game (especially if you dont die to him) Papyrus never has the intent to kill, he doesnt even bring you to Undyne. He of course willingly spares you (in genocide and pacifist) so its always wrong to kill him
7:00 I think one part of the rationality to this fight is to think more about Toriel's motivations. Just like Napstablook, even though you can't really tell at first, Toriel isn't really coming at Frisk to kill Even ignoring her avoiding killing you when you're at low health, her dialogue before and during the fight say it as well: She's trying to discourage you from leaving Which is not a good look for her either, but she also firmly believes Frisk will die on their way to Asgore or to Asgore himself. She wants Frisk to turn around and head back up into the house, not to kill them. And then also adding in the fact that when Frisk is at low health, Toriel's attacks get weaker, and when Frisk is even lower, Toriel just plain goes out of her way to aim her attacks off to the side to avoid hitting them Still not good to be holding Frisk against their will, but, outside of the constraints of the game, killing her is a bit much. (Unfortunately there is no "Just beat her down and walk past her unconscious but still breathing body" option, lol, though I guess something like that would make it too easy to avoid tough decisions) Edit: There's also the idea given through the intro to some battles that some Monsters aren't *actually* fighting you? I forget which ones in particular except for Shyren, but sometimes the flavor text talks about how the Monsters are minding their own business and just wander up to you. . . Honestly it's really weird, but yeah, those enemies it's probably better to spare But the Royal Guard? Nah, waste them, lol. Dust them all.
2:47 the characters KNOW there are resets but dont remember exactly what you did, flowey is most likely just numb from how many resets he did. Counting sans would include mettaton, toriel, temmie, asgore, actually just everyone. (Also there IS a flee option to run from enemies)
Good critical thinking. 👍 Here are my contrasting ideas: • Whimsun clearly looks like they fight Frisk reluctantly rather than willingly, so Frisk should run away instead of fight. Whimsun would realistically be punished with containment rather than a death sentence. • If Frisk only attacks against Napstablook until the end of the battle, Napstablook says that he was lowering his own HP to make Frisk feel better. This implies that Frisk's attacks were doing no damage. Considering how Frisk was only trying to move Napstablook and is should be obvious to Frisk in-setting that their strikes weren't physically do anything (because they can feel their own strikes whereas we as players only view), there's no evidence that Frisk attempted to kill Napstablook. • In the case where Frisk is at low HP against Toriel, Toriel deliberately avoids harming Frisk when it's her turn, which would prove to Frisk that the fight isn't really one to the death. If the fight would reach this point, it would make it only justified to harm Toriel, not kill her. • I think it's not justified to kill Papyrus in any case considering he only ever tries capturing Frisk and he is kind of a pushover in doing even that. It's only justified to harm him. • I think it's reasonable for Frisk to run away when Monster Kid hangs on the edge of the bridge, because rescuing him puts Frisk in danger of being attacked by Undyne. At that point, Frisk has seen how versatile and skilled Undyne is with her spears. It's more so Undyne's responsibility to rescue monsters, and Frisk leaving would make Undyne have the incentive to prioritize saving Monster Kid over attacking Frisk.
So glad there's someone bringing nuance to the discussion of Undertale's morality, it's been absent for far too long, and clearly by Toby Fox's own intent. You actually changed my mind about Toriel, and it caused me to see something I didn't see before: Toriel doesn't ever kill you, and not only doesn't seem disappointed if you kill her, but actively wants you to "fight or run away". I think that, with her endless years weighing down on her, she's attempting assisted suicide. The situation with Undyne may seem cut and dried, but it's a bit more interesting than that. It's clear she has a large amount of popularity, and that what she says may be taken as infallible. We can also assume that she's said similar things to other monsters. Obviously what she said is blatantly false, but that sure isn't obvious to the other monsters, and if she goes to fight Frisk and doesn't come back, the monsters will be grounded in their narrow-mindedness and false viewpoint tenfold. I'd argue this isn't just politically good, but that you're morally obligated to dispel deceit where possible. I actually think you're morally obligated to strike Asgore down. He's murdered 6 children, and as such deserves the death penalty. No amount of repentance can justify those actions. You might say it isn't Frisk's place to execute justice, and in an ideal world that'd be true. But who's gonna hold him accountable? The underground is largely anti-human to begin with, and all of them love Asgore. This is the only chance for him to get what's come to him.
That's a good point about Asgore. It also makes me think more about how he obtained the souls. I'm no lore expert so I don't know if there's a lore-accurate answer, but Undyne could've possibly murdered the children too. Pretty interesting comment and something I would not have thought of otherwise.
@@WyvrnOnYT It's implied that the humans fall down in long stretches of time from each other. Toriel says Frisk is the first one to fall down in "a long time". This seems pretty subjective, but we must remember that the Dreemurs' species never dies of old age, so her perspective of a long time is likely much longer than ours. Either way, Undyne wouldn't be alive, let alone in a place to kill humans. Additionally, if you choose to play dumb during her fight and let the first attack hit you, she'll repeat that attack, trying to make you understand how her gimmick works, and telling you that: "I thought if I beat you like this, it'd truly show how strong monsters could be." This implies that only Asgore has killed humans, since he's clearly leagues above the common monsters in more than just lifespan, and even if it was the previous captain or another royal guardsman that killed one or more of the humans, Asgore is still to blame, he still gave the edict that every human that fell into the underground should die.
See, here's the thing, once you beat regular enemies to low health you get to spare them. That's it, well done! You won, the opponent's down. You can just walk away now. But no, you *choose* to kill, even though the more merciful option is available and it still fits the self-defence narrative. Of course, it doesn't apply when you accidentally kill them in one hit.
In my opnion neutral is is ok, It's self defense for monsters like Undyne and muffet, and while small monsters don't deserve dying (most don't even realise you're a human), a small child could accidentaly kill them in self defence. - Better than the people who say GENO is justificable, even with Papyrus, Maddy and Mk sparing you, you chasing monsters for hours, not letting them go while yhey ead for mercy and you always attacking on the first turn, meaning you are always the one to start fighting
I was thinking of what route I would do if I was in the underground, and it endup with me realising I would die to Muffet or Mettaton, but ignoring that. - If I was in the underground what would I do? Fight them...? Spare them...? Neither, I would just run from every encounter, monster want to fight me? Run, Napstablook is crying? Run, the dogs are after me? Run(1 is blind, 2 are dumb, 2 just care about the smell), bosses like Toriel would be harder, but I would just need to go out while she's sleeping, papyrus wouldn't kill me, so even if I couldn't run away he would do that thing if you lose 3 times, and undyne spare method is to run away in the first place. - With would endup with me dying on muffet stuck on her webs or with mettaton in that elevator, and even if I attacked monsters, it says is mostly on bases on intent, and I'll probably be more like "get away" then "I want you dead", so I don't think I would accidentaly kill anyone. - But what I am meaning to say is, some people say stuff like "why do you need to be nice to people that attack you?", but you don't need, you can run, you can attack untill you defeat them and let them go, you can scare monsters away, you can explain their attacks hurt you, you don't need to try getting along with them, just don't pick murder as your first option on peoples who are way weaker than you.
I guess another point is, what neutral run it is? A aborted geno? Killed one single monster at the beggining? Killed 80+ monsters while not activating geno?
@@ViniciusDiasissy that troll face pfp guy in the video called "Undertale yellow all bossesmmmm" something like that, can you help with something I wanted to talk to that guy but mssges keep getting deleted what about you tell that Ultimate Capper guy to check my about me
One thing I'd note, if you get to the end of the muffet bossfight, she'll opt to spare you once she finds out that the fight is just a misunderstanding, and at that point it's morally wrong to kill her.
I get where the videos coming from but I feel it misses one of the biggest parts of undertale. I see the first couple monsters that can’t be spared immeadietly being fine to morally kill. But as soon as Frisk dies once Frisk would find out that she can’t truly die. This makes killing a monster from then on the easy choice to spending the extra time finding out how to spare one. The main point would be: if you have infinite time and infinite lives is it morally correct to kill something when you know it’s possible to avoid doing so?
It is never morally correct to purge a papyrus. He can't even kill Frisk, he just captured as I'm sure 200,000 different comments have said. But what they haven't said is that papyrus... uh... papyrus is just too cool a dude to justify killing...?
Something to mention about Toriel that makes this a harder decision is that while she does attack, she actively avoids killing Frisk. Once you get low on health, her attacks avoid you. You have to actively try to die for her to be able to kill you.
One of my leadt favorite things about undertale is theres not enough hateable characters wich means the game rarely trys to push you to kill in any way ut doesnt challenge your resolve. And the one super hateable character (Alphys) isnt killable
Realistically, How (If you don't already know the rest of the plot, which invalidates killing anyone really (For in game, moral reasons, not external reasons)), is Alphys more hateable than Undyne?
what i feel about papyrus: If he spares you and you feel as if he cannot be trusted (IF you have not been captured yet), its i guess ok to kill him..? I mean idrk. If you fake out papyrus, that's morally wrong, obvi. If you get captured once or twice and then he tries to spare you when the battle is almost over, i feel like it would not be moral to kill him, after all, he does heal you and doesn't kill you. And also the fact that he seems genuine. If you get captured three times and then papyrus spares you, i feel as if a random man came up to me and started attacking me and then putting me in a shed with the intention of trapping me, 3 TIMES. (Even if you are being healed i dont feel as if it justifies the whole thing) i would NOT trust him, like what if he just captures us again. Ik sans tells u hes harmless, but also again, hes a total stranger, both of them Also papyrus is willing to harm u in the multicolor puzzle due to him allowing you to be endangered by all of these things: electrocution, piranha attacks and fighting monsters without consent.
considering you can literally flee from almost all fights, i think it wouldnt be morally correct to kill most of them. Self defense is way less broader and lenient than the common sense (in the sociological definition) makes people think. If there's a option where no one dies, it isn't morally correct to use the option that someone does.
The thing is that you can't kill a robot, but you can kill a monster. You still get execution points because you're kinda still distancing yourself from the mosters.
My first playthru of Undertale, I killed every boss except Papyrus, though I would have spared any boss if they had decided to walk away. At the end when Sans was explaining Exp in the judgement hall, I was like "I mean, it was all self-defense, so I don't feel bad" lol.
2:48 Asgore actually has minor awareness of these resets. When you die and tell him you died to him before in a pacifist route, he nods his head sadly. He can’t remember entire resets, but he can remember your deaths.
7:50 i would like to point out that you can refuse to hurt Toriel and then kill her right when you are able to spare her which she gives unique dialogue about how you hate her that much to attack at her most valuable. This does put Frisk at a different light because they are intentionally playing with her feelings. When it comes to morality it just depends on the individual players intentions and knowlege on the game because of how alot of choices can be explained to simply being oblivious.
i recall mettaton saying “i have no desire to kill humans, my only desire is to entertain” so he doesn’t truly have a thirst for human blood. Alphys lies to you and enlists mettaton to torment Frisk so she can save them throughout Hotland to gain Frisks favour. That being said, he agreed to so I guess?
To add insult to injury to the choice to spare or kill Asgore, I believe on the third time of Flowey interruping his Spare, Flowey lets you talk to him, and Asgore kills HIMSELF! So even if you did get to spare him, it was still going to be tragic.. Very truamatizing for a kid I'd imagine
Uhh, you said Papyrus can kill you in his bossfight... the boss is hardcoded to NOT kill you, only bring you to one hp then end the fight, putting you in Papyrus's garage. I'd say that this changes quite a bit about the whole encounter, because A. He goes out of his way to not kill you, B. He tries his best to give you sufficient living conditions and C. If you were to fail the fight five times he will let you leave in pure peace, which further shows he is too naïve to believe that Asgore or the royal guard would harm you (he believes in friendship to that far of a degree) and quite frankly he is too pure in intention to actually be considered evil in any sort of way.
I recently watched About Oliver's let's play of Undertale, both his neutral run and pacifist run, and if Frisk loses to Papyrus enough times, (Frisk doesn't die when they "lose", he just locks them up in the shed, not even tying them up LMFAOOOO) he gets tired of repeatedly fighting Frisk and locking them up and eventually just lets them go. So in my opinion, killing him is completely unjustified here. I also want to say that that method of getting through Papyrus's boss fight is something I've never seen before. Difficulty is truly subjective; I, and probably many others, don't find Papyrus to be a difficult fight at all, but AO had so much trouble with him. I learn new things about this game every time I hear about it.
I feel like it isn’t that unjustified to leave monster kid. Undyne is faster than us, an adult and is the same distance from monster kid than us. Up until this point, she’s only been trying to kill Frisk. If there was a killer who’s been chasing you down now at the other end of a bridge, I don’t think it’s too wrong to run away even if someone else is in trouble
To be honest, I think the only reason I spared Flowey after his Omega fight (when I had Undertale at least...) was because when you think about it, it would just make him suffer more. Think about it. In the genocide run, he mentions to you (Frisk, not the reader) that he did _everything_ he could think of doing to every monster in the underground. Killing them, getting answers out of them, likely verbally abusing them as well... (among other things I don't really want to get into), he eventually got bored with it all. On top of that, he basically gets the last laugh when you kill him, since he says he knew you had it in yourself to be apart of his mentality of "kill or be killed." Am I really gonna let someone get satisfaction from that after trying to kill me? No. ...then again, I doubt Frisk would think about that when dealing with Flowey on their first run.
![Undertale - 9th Anniversary Special [1/2] | Three Left | Battle Animation](/img/n.gif)
One thing I forgot to say near the end. I am not a "lore expert" when it comes to Undertale. If there's anything in this video that is objectively incorrect, please feel free to correct me.
Edit: Many commenters have corrected me on Papyrus' bossfight and how you can't die during it. I appreciate it but There's no need to correct me on that anymore 😂😂
Tbh the only nitpick is that MTT is a ghost like Nabstablook or Mad Dummy, so he does count as a person.
papyrus can't kill you btw he just puts you in the "capture room"
you said papyrus can kill you, he cannot
Honestly, I would've just looked at all the different neutral endings, then examining the morality of how you got there.
Did you get the ending where you killed Undine? Well, you've SEEN how psychotic that fish lady acts. It doesn't matter that she's shouting about justice for monsters and is called a heroine by all the monsters, you're a small child and she's a knight throwing spears at you like she's Vergil and they're his summoned swords. If she knew about it she would definitely try throwing out a judgement cut and yell 'scum' at you. Undine is a walking fight or flight vibe check and she can deny you the ability to run.
9:39 WOAH WOAH WOAH, PAPYRUS IS THE ONE FIGHT THAT CAN NEVER KILL YOU! NOT EVEN TORIEL'S FIGHT IS THAT SAFETY PROOFED! HE WILL DROP HIS ATTACK THE SECOND YOU FALL INTO 1 HIT KILL RANGE AND 'CAPTURE' YOU BY TAKING YOU TO HIS LAUGHABLY EASY TO ESCAPE SHED!
HELL HE EVEN STOPS TRYING ALTOGETHER AFTER 3 CAPTURES AND ESCAPES!
9:45
The only error I found in this video so far:
Papyrus is the only monster Frisk encounters that can *never* kill them! Papyrus lowers Frisk down to 1 HP, and captures them by putting them in his shed. Papyrus also willingly heals Frisk up, so he does show that he does have a lot of restraint.
Somebody else corrected me on this too, so thanks to both of you.
@PenniNanaNanaBanana-Astra to be fair, even if humans have really low hp, they have far higher defense. Frisk with a plastic knife can deal 30 damage to toriel at lv 1, while monsters in the core who are trained mercenaries deal single digit damage unless you have really high lv at which point frisk can take many hits from them.
Also, Papyrus does say that he wants to be your friend, but he can’t because his dreams
Just realised he said mettaton wasn’t a monster and was a robot and I can understand that but it’s actually a ghost that inhabits the body
In a rational stand point, you don’t know that Papyrus won’t kill you, unless you take Sans word or been almost defeated by him in the first place
don't forget that you are still technically playing neutral in pacifist
It’s still a part of the true pacifist, you are not killing at any chance you don’t have to. Even then, at the end you aren’t even the one who killed asgore.
Yeah that's true these two routes are similar. So I guess Pacifist is just a narrowed down and more restrictive neutral route.
@@TJ-hg6op you can kill asgore in pacifist tho
the deltarot consumes. don't forget, I'm with you in the dark
@@slaoqeubotoaqyeah but he attacked us first, and he wanted us to kill him. So us killing him is VERY justified.
Actually, something not really covered in the neutral route often (because most people don't know about it) is that, if you go through the neutral route while killing a few monsters, flowey tells you "if you get through the whole underground without killing a SINGLE monster, I WON'T kill the king."
But here's the thing. You still don't have to do true pacifist for this. Meaning, if you just spare everyone and befriend nobody, you can get to the end of the game and have Asgore not die!!! Right?? ......right?
Wrong.
If you do this and attempt to spare Asgore, he will recognize that keeping you trapped in the underground is cruel, and he will KILL HIMSELF so that you can take his soul, and then flowey destroys his soul.
It doesn't really matter if you spare or kill him, he was going to die no matter what.
He never really wanted to kill you, he just wanted the fight to be over.
Man, why do people not know this
Seriously why?
It’s weird how comments with so many likes can also have so few or even a single reply
@@libsh5684 I mean there is nothing to reply to, it is a statement of fact
@@generalyoda8325 good point
Just furthering why Asgore is simply the best character im the game
The worst ending you can get is killing everyone except for glad dummy. Everyone everyone loves is dead and glad dummy will eventually become to depression with its coming hatred for the body it fused with.
You could leave any one character alive and make the same argument
The worst part ending has a required grammar check. You haven't seen bull yet.
Ah yes the transphobia ending
@@IcyDiamond Fucking real
@Nooy_ Not really. Mad Dummy is a special case since they'll be depressed of two reasons.
neutral is what actually would happen realistically
Frisk would basically be like
“oh hey these guys don’t want to fight anymore” and spare them, or
“oh crap these guys are trying to kill me” and kill them
@@Mrsir529I don’t know if a child would ACTUALLY tried to kill anyone, so I feel like realistically Frisk would just run away
@@helio3928 tbf Frisk having the power to time loop after death is a thing in universe, so I think he may as well just use that to spare everyone.
@@StarMisuraa normal child wouldn't, but a child with the power of a time loop dying a lot would probably in self defense
I can't blame Frisk for accidentally killing the first froggit as its a new environment to them and probably reacted out of pure fear not realizing they could spare the froggit. Undyne is completely reasonable to kill/ not give water to, that monster is literally hunting you down and not giving you an option to surrender, Mettaton is throwing their life into mortal danger and makes it clear that they have ill intent towards Frisk, Asgore striaght up doesn't let you spare him, meaning Frisk has no other option than to kill him. Flowey is a no brainer, he's far too dangerous to be left alive and terrorize the underground, yes they're a deeply traumatized child who was unfairly hunted by humans, but he's shown he's indifferent to commit mass murder and extremely dangerous and willing to harm others if given the option
Fair point, for Asgore though, I think it is somewhat better if you spare him after winning
That doesn’t make killing him unjustified, but a bit lower on the moral scale
to not give water to undyne is to pour out whole cooler on the ground via a single cup at a time. that is pretty sadistic and morally wrong, imo
@@nghiaoantrong899
Asgore also has the mindset where he feels guilt and wants Frisk to finish him off if he loses. If you spare him and he isn’t murdered, then he commits self-unalive and renders your choice meaningless. (Censored because of youtube) It’s a lose-lose situation where he can’t be spared ever, because his guilt can only drive him forward or to the grave.
Self-defense is not always morally justifiable. Frisk's soul would free potentially thousands of monsters (idk if they ever say how many, at least more than one) of equal worth. If it's between Frisk and even just two monsters, Frisk is not morally justified disregarding any further context that may change the math, 2>1
@@crypt5129 it is, stop saying bs
13:30 Another error. No matter what's the route, even if you're in genocide, Muffet gets a letter from the spiders in the RUINS saying you never hurt a single spider and then (even if you didn't buy a donut) she spares you, and if you still try giving money, she refuses.
While she has the same spare method as papyrus there is 2 key differences
1 she is actually trying to kill you
2 unlike papyrus you can kill her before the letter arrives
3 she is a morally far worse character than most of the cast she is literally a cannibal both making treats of spiders but in genocide even regretting not turning alphys into a donut when she came to warn her to evacuate
This doesn't really make a difference in the morality of killing her because this happens if you decided not to fight back for a long enough period of time (you would have already been justified to fight back)
Also my point was that it's possible to skip the boss entirely but the method is so obscure and insensible that you shouldn't be expected to take it, so this moment in particular is not an error :)
@@WyvrnOnYT I used Fight most of the time in the buffet battle on my first playthrough and I still got the Spare. In my opinion, it's morally wrong to kill her if she spares you.
Not to mention she refused to evacuate on genocide and is the entire reason why hotland and the core are accesible AND have killable monsters in them @@danielgonzalez-vm5lj
@@Q2FwaXRhbGlzbSBiYWQu Doesn't matter if she is dead before giving you a chance to spare her.
It's straightup impossible to say if the neutral route is morally good or bad, because your actions can range from killing nobody but not hanging out with undyne, to killing literally everybody except one enemy that is required to continue the geno route
Yeah… I think videos like this miss the point of it being called the NEUTRAL route
This may be a random enemy to bring up, but killing Vulkin seems a bit more morally questionable than other monsters. I'd still say it's justified since your life is still in danger, but it's made clear throughout the fight that Vulkin is not trying to hurt you, they're just stupid. Vulkin thinks their attacks heal you. Killing Vulkin would still fall under self-defence, but it would be a little worse than killing someone like Doggo or Migosp.
I think many of the enemies are like that and are simply trying to interact with you, and don't realize that their magic hurts you.
being ignorant does not hold up in any court of law
@@chess123mate Haha! NO! They deliberately stated that Vulkin is just stupid. Only them. It's a bit weird for them to explicitely state that if everyobne does that.
@@dragondastan4763 most monsters don't know you're human. look at bratty and catty, papyrus, the snowdin shopkeeper, and basically every regular monster besides the ones in the core. if they knew you were human, why would they be friendly with you if it was the king's orders that every human dies? also i'm not counting MK, they're a child and probably didn't even think humans were real
I mean, whimsums do not want to fight you either.
9:39
You can *_not_* die to Papyrus. He truly does nonlethally capture you, just as he claimed, and then put you inside of a jerry-rigged jail inside of his shed.
… he made the bars too wide, like he did at the bridge before Sans' sentry point, though.
thanks for the useless information nerd 🤓
I think trying to kill Nabstablook after willingly engaging it is ... questionable. At least on the first turn, I don't see a reason to not try talking to it.
Also, something to consider about the self defence thing is that you can attack enemies until they don't want to fight anymore.
Do they tho
Cause yeah their names turn yellow but they still attack you
@@angelapuzzleYou may also accidentally go too far and end them anyway. Assuming a more “human” play through where you don’t save scum everything, that’s already being locked in Neutral.
My argument against your point is that even if they allow you to spare them once you beat them up they on the contrary would never spare if frisk is on low hp. torial notices when your hp is low and starts purposefully missing, and Pap lowers you to exactly one before capturing you. But other monsters don’t do this, they have no mercy so thus I don’t feel too bad about them getting a taste of that same medicine.
@@angelapuzzle A Froggit in the game directly says "If a monster does not want to fight you"
@@legalza0843 Well, the monsters want your soul, right? So they can escape the underground that humans trapped them in. There isn't really a way to accomplish their goal peacefully. You'd probably just get killed later after being captured by Papyrus (maybe just not by HIS hand)
2:48 Sans actually can’t remember. He is just very good at examining body language and he knows of the existence of resets. Though never experiencing one.
But he is aware of the resets based on the dialogue of his genocide boss fight correct?
@@WyvrnOnYT no, as I said before he is EXTREMELY good at reading body language. Hence why Asgore would make him the judge. Since he is extremely good at estimating events and emotions based on the body.
In the video it says nothing about remembering. Sans is AWARE of resets (as implied by his “timelines starting and stopping” dialogue) he just doesn’t remember anything
@@Bengt2509…? Well, one the creator literally responded thinking he remembered and 2 “these” implies he remembered the resets in the creators context if it was just “aware of resets” then you would be correct with your statement. And the creator even implies they are not very knowledgeable in the lore of Undertale.
Well, unlike the player and Flowey, Sans doesn’t know what happened in past timelines, eg. before a reset or loading your save. But Sans does know that resets are a thing, and he knows that you have control of the timeline due to being a human.
This is also why Sans is so “lazy”, or rather, depressed. It’s tough for him to do his best and try to achieve things because he knows that all of his effort can just be undone at the whims of the player, or Flowey before Frisk fell into the Underground.
I think it depends on how you play the neutral ending- like fighting monsters isn’t wrong, most of them are trying to kill you or doing something that would lead to you dying. I think where it becomes morally wrong to fight on neutral is when an enemy either starts to spare you or tries to run away.
Like killing Undyne is justified, but because on neutral you can never kill papyrus before he stops fighting, killing him is wrong
Random enemies can be justified as self defense(except whimsun). Toriel can be justified as she does ask us to prove us we are strong enough to survive, imply we have to fight her. You can't kill Papyrus before he spares you so Papyrus is unjustified as you have to attack after he surrenders. Undyne, Muffett, Mettaton and Asgore literally want your soul so that's justified. Flowey attempts to kill you immediately. Attempts to kill you over and over again until he's satisfied while taunting you which definitely counts as strange and unusual forms of torture on top of murder. Flowey is 100% justified. Keep in mind this is just my opinion. If you disagree that's okay.
Moldsmal can also be spared instantly
@@someone8206 oh yes, forgot about Modsmol, it’s self defense except whimsun and modsmol
Some enemies can be spared by bringing them down to low hp
@@akitteninabowl8872 yeah but they still try to kill you even if they’re yellow
Jerry
14:35 I never really understood why people say this about Napstablook, Mettaton, Papyrus or Sans. it's not like Sans and Papyrus are UNDEAD CORPSES, they're skeleton-type monsters. so no, they're not already dead. same with Napstablook, it's not like he's the soul of some human, he's just a ghost monster, a type of monster. and Mettaton isn't a robot, he's a ghost possessing a robotic vessel created by Alphys. I know you don't use that as an argument for why killing them is okay, but you mentioned it as if it's a fact, so I wanted to correct that, is all. love the video btw.
9:45 he says "papyrus is" just when the dialogue box cuts off perfectly at "papyrus is"
Would be cool to see if this is also true for yellow, especially considering clovers naive but noble intentions making even its geno route sympathetic, even if morally wrong
Decibat is iffy for you to kill, as he engaged the fight but he's only asking for you to be quiet.
You are following Dalv around, and he's asking you to leave him alone, so I don't think killing him is justifiable.
You can't kill Martlet.
El Bailador is iffy, as he engages the "fight" but he's just asking for you to play DDR with him.
Starlo is iffy, as he spends the entire wild east bonding with you, and it's clear he's not in a good state when you fight him, but he does outright say he's going to kill you several times.
Guardner is justifiable, he's binded you with vines and is saying that it's going to kill you.
Axis is questionable, because you are trespassing and he's trying to simply apprehend you, but he does say that he's going to kill you several times.
You can't kill flowey in neutral.
a lot of monsters are trying to kill you all the time so as much as u love all the characters, if you're a random kid in a place full with monsters that say they need your soul then HOW can you not be terrified?
By the fact that you cant really permanently die.
Yeah, terrified, and what do kids do when they’re terrified? Usually they ran away. Let’s say if Undertale is real, would Frisk ACTUALLY have enough willpower to actually KILL anyone instead of running?
@@StarMisura plus, through the power of *d e t e r m i n a t i o n ✨✨* you can literally not die because it's not determination itself, is de-termination (same as when Frisk re-fuse during the final pacifist fight).
It's like an adult play fighting with a child or a small animal, Idk if I explained myself well here.
Can’t you just like- run away tho
I think assuming a kid will attempt to kill in self defense in the first place is presumptuous, if I’m a kid in this environment my first instinct is to run…
I think that, in a neutral run, you are not only justifyed in killing Flowey, but morally obligated to.
Yeah, I don't think letting the evil time-warping flower demon who's already tried to become a god once run around is... a great idea.
I do think we should factor in the fact Frisk can undo their own death if they fall. So no enemy is a true threat to Frisk (Except Flowey) so kill Flowey if you wish.
It's something to consider
Not really, you could reset the universe a billion times to dodge a bullet, but for that matter, they aren't entitled to you to go your way to save them when they are trying to kill you. It is something that falls in a moral gray, it is not like seeing a person in danger and not saving them, here they are seeking to harm you.
@@mado-wh4jv Not entitled to be helped but still Sans makes a good point that if you have the amount of power and knowledge Frisk does you may have to consider that you have a responsibility to use it. Of course, in game and out of universe you can say: No, Frisk doesn’t have to spare enemies just because they are not truly in danger (Outside of the Flowey fight) but it should be considered.
"Hee hee hee.
Did you really think I'd be satisfied...
killing you only one time?"
I remember those lines.
@@SuperBatSpider Something else to consider...Dying hurts. For a child to die painfully, come back and spare their murderer is a lot to ask. And how many times will this happen with in a run? Guess it's a good thing they're so determined
Remember Chara is not a demon people! We need more people who understand this. If you kill everyone YOU killed everyone. Chara only helped, even if you do a few genocide routes Chara even shows disgust.
Be honest if you were frisk realistically, would you ACTUALLY spare flowey after the omega flowey fight?
No.
Yes.
I would probably. I’m too kind for my own good
No
Yes, but in the sense of "remember this day the rest of your poor, pathetic life and live. Live and engrave in your heart that you're here today because I wanted to."
Even tho Flowey WAS Asriel, he's NOT Asriel anymore so no sympathy nor fucks given towards that psycho flower xd
I don't agree with the moster kid part. Undyne is literally moving to you trying to kill you and it's not like that it's your fault that monster kid tripped so Frisk trying to escape would make sense. Basically not risking your own life to safe another one makes sense for me especially because its expected that monster kid gets saved anyway by Undyne.
I definitely should've taken more time to go over this encounter looking back on it. It's more complicated than it seems.
Well, Frisk is a kid. From what I know about kids is that (if they’re not pricks) they want to help people that they see are in trouble
Correct answer is that it depends on who you aren’t a pacifist with. Killing some one like undyne, mettaton, or the core enemies is 100% justified self defense
I wouldn’t say mettaton is tho, I have a feeling he wasn’t actually trying to kill frisk but more was set up as a reason to prop up alphys. Alphys literally gets exposed at the end of the core for setting up stuff to oppose frisk and who says they didn’t tamper with mettaton? Mettaton was probably only attacking frisk and doing things with them because it got him views and was good for show buisness. And we aren’t even considering the fact alphys trusted you and you murdered mettaton who was there friend causing them to commit suicide later in the run.
10:08 last time I checked papyrus cannot actually kill you. He always leaves you at 1 hp and just takes you to his garage to a supposed cell where the bars are too wide and the door is unlocked. Even if you lose to him 2 more times he just lets you go even without beating him.
What I've always wondered: If your SOUL shatters into pieces when you die, how are those who are trying to kill you for your SOUL going about taking it when they kill you? Do they just... sweep up the pieces and deliver them to Asgore?
Maybe alphys assembles them in lab or smt?
I think the whole SOUL break animation is just for the looks. I mean it would be pretty lame if everything disappeared and just left the SOUL alone on the screen before the Game Over appears. Maybe Toby could have made it so on Game Over we see the SOUL being trapped in a container (like Asgore's), but I feel like it wouldn't give the same effect.
17:56 I love the look on Flowey's face when you dodge his attacks at the beginning 🤣
Froggit says "Monsters wont want to fight you when their hp is lowered" or something along the lines. Clearly, attacking when you can spare the enemy for good is the immoral thing to do
That Froggit you are talking about is the same first Froggit you encounter with Toriel. And as stated in the video, it is ok to kill him. And if you kill him, he won't show up to tell you what you are reffering.
@@merphinsky5193 What about what TORIEL says? She tells you to NOT fight enemies, that she will sort the mess up right before the room you encounter that Froggit. Just stall. And after that, you will have Froggit tell you if you hurt monsters enough they won't fight you anymore. And conveniently, Froggit appears ONCE Toriel leaves.
@@KasecTheTravelerThat Froggit is weaker than the other Froggits. You can oneshot this one with a Stick while the others can't be oneshot. Furthermore this is Frisks first real combat encounter after Flowey. It is not unreasonable trying to fend it off with a stick. Flowey a literal Flower can bring you down to 1HP with one single bullet and survived a fireball straight into his face. It's not wrong to at first assume that all monster are as strong as Flowey or Toriel and therefore attack it in the heat of the moment. Also Flowey literally says that in this world it's kill or be killed. This is an unknown place for humans with unknown inhabitants and if Flowey is the first one that you encounter it's not unreasonable that you attack a Frog monster that innetiates combat with you - regardless of what Toriel has said before.
@@selena3467I think Frisk’s actions could be justified based on the INTENTIONS. The last hit is stronger than the others, so if you *tried to* prove to Toriel that you’re strong enough by lowering her HP, but accidentally actually killing her, it could maybe be justified since it’s an accident and she told you to prove to her? It’s like an accident in training. So we can’t really count it if we don’t know Frisk’s intentions
Muffet is a weird one, we're supposed to go all "aww, what a cute friendly monster, she only... attacks... and kills... people who don't pay money to her spider charity..." and yeah, what can I say, she's literally just a mugger.
Oh no you can absolutely murder mettaton, robot in body but that is still a monster, since you might not know that’s a ghost in a robot body
Alphys made mettaton for… mettaton (the ghost) then using mettaton (the robot) she convinced asgore she could make a robot with a monster soul but really it was a ghost possessing a robot giving it a soul, once a ghost is fused with a body it can be killed like any other monster, we see this with mad dummy in the genocide route as they turn into glad dummy having fused to their body and can now be killed, this also applies to mettaton
Morally? Yeah frisk wouldn’t know, mettaton has purposefully hid his life behind him and tried to erase all the evidence of him being a ghost, the most you can find is the key which leads to his old house but even then it’s not clear
Frisk killing mettaton would be justified as it would be like breaking a machine that had gone haywire and is now dangerous, you don’t think about it too much cause it’s just a robot, but even in the externally off chance frisk did learn this was a living person that isn’t bound by code and can’t be rebuilt as their soul would break once they die, mettaton still admits that someone has to die, that he would rather kill you thank let all of humanity die, and that he hired people to murder you, at the end of the day that’s just not okay and knowing he isn’t just a robot doesn’t change that
Btw Napstablook, Mettaton(the ghost), Papyrus, and Sans aren’t UNDEAD humans or something, they’re some TYPE of monsters. They resembles the characteristics of ghosts and skeletons, but they were never dead (like… they were not humans who died and came back in a different form)
But Mettaton doesn’t have a thirst for blood thats a lie from Alphys so she can pretend save Frisk from fake dangers Mettaton says he doesn’t want to harm humans before the fight
@@matthew_wagner813 yeah but he still very clearly says he wants to kill you so he can get to the surface and that he's okay with it, like obviously he doesn't want to kill a human he likes humans but he's sorta just like "yeah this is my plan, i hired people to kill you but i guess i gotta do it myself! alphys was putting you in fake danger but i'm actually gonna kill you"
@@Tammythemouseyeah you’re right
I'd say that while Frisk would attack if they see it as self-defense, they're just a kid. I doubt they would want to kill anyone assuming they have no reason to. This logic leads me to believe that Papyrus is spared by Frisk, as he specifically states he's sparing you, and at that point Frisk no longer has a good reason to kill Papyrus at all.
Tbh, i dont think killing tori is justified for a few reasons
1: she actively *avoids* killing frisk when they're fighting. Although she can accidentally kill Frisk, she doesn't straight up attempt to. Plus simply challenging someone in a fight doesn't justify killing.
2: tori actually has a good reason for keeping frisk at the ruins, as according to her most of the other monsters would kill frisk, which actually is true. So it becomes less like tori holding frisk against her will.
And more like tori trying to prevent frisk from getting yourself murdered. Kinda like a mother trying to stop a child from running into a busy high-way. Which kinda makes killing tori, the furthest from justified.
Also tori litterally saves frisk from death so yeah.. its straight up impossible for frisk to justify killing toriel. Unless She considers a child killing a mother for trying to stop said child from doing something dangerous justified.
The thing that made me kill Toriel was that I was trying to get her health low enough to spare her. In a real situation, it would be "fight enough to let her know you're strong enough to survive". However, the final hit does way more damage than all the other hits, which took me by surprise. You could think of it as a training accident. Though what Frisk intended matters. Is it an intentional kill, or an accidental kill? That changes pretty much everything. That's what makes these questions so complicated, it's not JUST about the action, it's about why they chose that action in the first place as well.
@@FastKnight401 I actually think Genocide is a perfect supporting argument for your point! In a blind neutral run, Frisk might think that FIGHTing until her health gets low is the solution to spare Toriel after finding that ACTing does nothing, with that final, stronger attack doing more damage being a genuine surprise to them, which to me makes it seem accidental. Meanwhile in the Genocide route, you kill Toriel in one swing, which I would definitely call intentional.
I think what happens with Toriel mostly is that it feels justified to _fight back_ : she's testing you, so you try to show her you've got what it takes, hoping she'll acknowledge you. The problem then is that the game intentionally uses crits to fuck with you in that case. The equivalent of "one punch hit wrong and now our enthusiastic sparring session has a body count".
I did a run and when I beat asgore I spared him and he told me to kill him anyway beacuse he said “I’m sorry but we just can’t have a happy ending, take my soul and leave this place.” And when flowey takes the souls he just says “let’s get this over with” and puts me in the end credits without fighting omega flowey
So then you’ve already done neutral. Flowey skips becoming photoshop/omega/whatever flowey if you’ve already finished neutral
Wow really? I didn't know something like that could happen. That's pretty cool.
@@WyvrnOnYTthat happens once you reset and do a neutral route again. Flowey skips becoming photoshop/omega flowey
@@Bengt2509 no I started in a new account and was very confused
@@Bengt2509 bcz I was trying the Nintendo switch version for the first time
One thing I like to point out is the Snowman/Snowman Piece interaction.
While it's technically not part of the combat or neutral route, it is a rather personal bit of morality.
You have the option to take the snowman piece all the way to the end, but you can also eat or drop the piece in front of the snowman.
After doing it a second time, he'll never forgive you. This even gets dialogue if you've done a True Pacifist afterwards, to reflect on your actions.
I am so happy you point out that just because people like the genocide route, doesn't mean they are terrible people. People on the internet really can't seem to grasp this concept and immediately bombard you with things like "you are such a bad person, you should scooter ankle"
A big thing people fail to consider is that you can reset if you die IN UNIVERSE. Yes, normally them trying to kill you would be wrong, but they not only have a valid reason to do so, they also will never actually succeed. This is why you're judged harsher than you would be if resetting wasn't an in-universe mechanic. That's why I would consider Clover's neutral route more justified, Clover was told they can get reset if they die, but since they don't remember resets, they have no actual reason to believe Flowey.
But why wouldn't clover remember resets. He's also determined like Flowey, and Flowey can definitely remember resets (Aside from True Ones)
Well, it seems that Clover can remember reloads (read: unalives) that are performed by Flowey ("..." "..." "Why?"), and retain some knowledge of previous resets (as shown in Flowey's boss battle), but can't directly SAVE or LOAD until the end of the Vengeance Route.
Their reasons are not that valid. Especially muffets.
14:14 While that is true, right before his battle he reveals that it was never his intention to kill you or anything, just that Alphys made him pretend to so that she can "save" you from him. He also says that he just wants to be a star, and even loves humans. But it's really hard to tell whether it's immoral to kill him since when he's doing his grand finale he does throw bombs at you..
Morality isn't subjective. It's objective. There is right and wrong. There is no in between.
Nuh uh
Morality is subjective to individuals
Then the aforementioned individuals decide what "objective" morality should be
But it's ever changing
@@timlwry morality never changes. Has it ever been morally right to murder someone without cause? Will it ever be? No. Because the immorality of taking someone's life is universally known and felt and has been since humanity's beginning.
@@lucashampton3486 wdym it never changes???
It was morally acceptable to have slaves centuries ago
It was morally acceptable to burn "witches"
Are you daft???
Are people seriously STILL harassing others over FICTIONAL CHARACTERS...?
Have you not been on the Internet?
Something I love about the neutral route is the closure for the children's human souls who were murdered before you by supposedly Asgore (although there are hints they could have died before reaching him). It is satisfying as an ending the fact that once you get to fight flowey they are the ones to answer your call as they are the only ones who would realistically be sympathetic to your on self-defense. So you get to sort of avenge them and free them from their limbo.
Counterpoint: you can flee for no consequence in the ruins, as you will always get away, to stand and fight when to flee is an option is morally wrong according to some moralities
I'd argue Greator Dog was justified because he always looked nice and never said they wanted to kill you and just look happy and you need to do normal dog tricks that any other person would know to spare them so Frisk could understand that pretty nicely but yeah other that and the Toriel part great video!
And you cant judge him cuz the spear, it would be like killing papyrus cuz bones
I'd like to say there *are* some monsters which I consider it's morally wrong to kill, like whimsum and vulkin.
It's clear that whimsum encounters you by accideny and does NOT want to kill you, but only to defened herself and keep you away cuz she's scared. Her attacks don't even aim at you so the only way you can die is by intentionally getting hit, best thing to do here would be run or spare her.
And with vulkin, she just wants a hug, but ends up unintentionally hurting you in the proccess, like a playful dog being too brute with a child. As before, the solution is sparing or flee
same goes for temmie btw
The end RUINs dialogue you got only happens if you trigger a genocide and abort it, iunno, think genocide is pretty non-moral
Is that so? I don't believe the added context matters though because this dialogue has nothing to do with previous routes of the game, and only has to do with the choices you made at the ruins. I think regardless of whether or not this dialogue requires an aborted genocide route, my opinion would stay the same.
That’s not true. This dialogue is triggered when you spare Toriel but have killed any monsters in the Ruins. He says something different if you killed Toriel, then reloaded and spared her, though, even if you have killed other monsters. This is something that most players do on their first playthrough, so that might be why you thought this was exclusive to an aborted geno route.
@@MutedAndReported3032 Ah, that's my bad, I've only ever really seen it in the context of aborted genos, personally. Forgot about the requirement just being exp + SPARING Toriel.
I'm going to give my own thoughts. This is going to be a long comment.
I'm not entirely sure about Toriel since she does, in fact, start the battle, but she also avoids killing you. You can die to her, but it's rather difficult, especially if you aren't actively trying to do it. However, since we're assuming it's Frisk's first playthrough and how often first-time players don't understand how to spare her, I'd say it's justified.
Papyrus is completely unjustified. But I really like how the game handles him in terms of judging you because the judge, Sans, obviously doesn't like it when you kill his brother, so he'd judge you more harshly. But the game justifies this harsher judgment by making it literally impossible to kill him by accident, therefore removing any possible justification for killing him.
By the way, in the game, Napstablook and Mad Dummy are both shown to use they/them and not he/him. It's very easy to make this mistake, but I still want to let people know if they get it wrong. Mad Dummy also later switches to using she/her in certain versions of the game (specifically Switch and Xbox, but yes, this is still canon).
Also, Mettaton is even more confusing because, although the only way to learn this is by getting into a secret area in Waterfall, he is a ghost, not a robot. That's why you gain EXP from killing him. Also, he doesn't want to kill humans; he wants to entertain them. To do that, he'd need to absorb your soul and go to the surface. I'd still say it's justified, though, because he is rather clear about his intentions to kill you and take your soul.
Finally, Asgore. He literally asks you to unalive him. If you don't, Flowey will. If you stop Flowey from removing him, he will commit self-die. In a neutral route, there is no way to spare him.
Its definitely very sad to kill toriel, especially considering her relationship with sans. But i do kinda agree that attacking her is mostly justified. She is trying to trap you there with her so you cant go back home. If you think about it toriel in a way is being a little selfish here, while yes she is saying "its for your own good" and she wants to protect you. You have a right to want to return to your home from here and toriel is trying to force you to stay with her.
Yeah cause she let the 6 other humans leave and they all got killed by Asgore
9:41 you actually can't die in Papyrus boss fight, he will catch u and bring u to a prison that you really easy-escape prison
Trying to kill Nabstiblook is not justifyed, because Frisk was the agressor in that situation.
I would also say it's probly best to spare Whimson, and others that you can spare on the first turn.
I think that killing Papyrus was unjustified since no matter how many times you get hit PAPYRUS WON'T KILL YOU, he brings you down to 1 HP and then "captures" you so he can finally live out his lifelong dream.
This is probably something that was already said, but it is actually impossible to die to papyrus. Everytime you reach 1 hp, he will capture you and put you in his shed. He has absolutely zero intention to actually kill you, and even offers to quit fighting you if you lose to him enough times
I don’t think it’s morally wrong to kill Papyrus. Especially if, say, you end the fight with like 3HP. Imagine if some guy kept talking about capturing you, brought you close to death, and now you’re morally expected to spare him because “He’s worn out”. That’s ridiculous. We also know Papyrus is stubborn and resilient. There’s nothing stopping him from getting rest and continuing to hunt us down “for the Royal Guard” except for our preconceived notions as a gamer of knowing that the boss fight is the probably the final time we’ll have an altercation with him. (And yes, Papyrus will never kill the human, but they don’t know that)
And then you are in no way morally obligated to help Monster Kid. Undyne is literally right there and to help them is to move extremely close to her. You’re essentially jumping in front of a bullet (or spear) to save someone you met just two minutes ago and, again, Undyne is right there. She’s just as able to save Monster Kid as you are.
I still liked the video, despite these disagreements because props to you for posting an Undertale video where you say there’s nothing wrong with killing Toriel.
Papyrus was going to bring undying there to kill you so probably best if you killed him also Papyrus is on that Dan Schneider shit Bro went on a date with a child that's probably not even in the double digits💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 do not let this man anywhere near Society
13:45
Like papyrus, she always spares you at the end of the fight.
Attacking her is justified but finishing her off isn’t.
One thing that I should point out is that you can abort the Genocide Run to become a Neutral Run at any point in the game. However, I would think these routes are still morally wrong to a degree, especially if you abort the Route in Hotland. There's a unique ending for it, but one thing I should point out is that Frisk still has an urge to kill the monsters during the New Home segment as a smile appears above the encounters. I just thought it was a bit interesting.
You can abort until the final “but nobody came”
That's a really good point. Aborting a genocide route, especially deeper into the game, gives us a neutral ending where we indeed were a villain.
@@WyvrnOnYT "I should have killed you when I had the chance."
Frisk is a child. I don’t see how they know how to spare some monsters that are trying to to kill them
I also dont see how he knows how to murder monsters instead of flee from them as a child
Papyrus is not justified he spares and does not kill you he stops at 1 hp and if you lose to often he offers you to walk past him
but with the previous conversations
"im gonna capture you and have the royal guards get you" which means death and another war
that's fair game to kill
@@MarcusCollins69 well Papyrus is naive he thinks they take care of us and not about kill us, he taught it would be fun for us
@@Linktheangel1993 and being naive is not an execuse
@@Linktheangel1993he's naive not a moron he knows for a fact undying is going to kill a child
@@Linktheangel1993 I mean, if Hitler sends his dumbest SS who think they're going to take you to a sea holiday resort, are you obligated to go along with them to not hurt their feelings?
I really think it boils all down to fighting in defence, and when it's not needed, stop. If someone lets you go and isn't going to be a threat any more, spare them. As long as they try to kill you, or capture you, they're fair game.
That face flowey made on the video icon looks like that creepy teethy face my sister makes to scare me.
The entire point of Frisk it's that they are a representation of the player, it isn't a regular human, it's you
And by that perspective, neutral makes so much sense, we are learning the game, and it's the first time we have an RPG were you can spare enemies, we don't know the concept of genocide and pacifist routes, maybe we don't know how to proceed with certain characters in order to spare them, or we killed them by accident.
My first route was neutral because my English wasn't the best, and I was getting used to the spare mechanic
It depends on which monsters you kill
Most monsters unjustly attack you,so defending yourself is the moral action,however you can cause enough damage to a monster to a point where they're too weak to fight and then spare them,that's what i did on my first playthrough,on my second playthrough i killed every monster i encountered except for the main bosses,this would be less moral than just weakening them and then sparing them or running away,however it could still technically be considered an act of self defense because they did attack you first with intentions to kill you,however killing Toriel or Papyrus can most certainly be considered an evil action because neither of them had any intentions of actually causing lasting harm to you,but of course Frisk doesn't know that so I think even that could be considered not entirely evil or amoral...
Tories I agree, Papyrus not so much. He's being a very dumb enforcer but still an enforcer for the king that wants to kill you and take your soul (and possibly use it to destroy humanity, though come on, I don't believe Asgore would actually do that). He's still trying to confine you. Would it be evil to use deadly force in defence from a kidnapper just because they are trying to capture you alive?
Something to note about Papyrus, he only knocks you out if you actually die to him. He even leaves water for you in case. while it might not be known on a first playthrough of a game (especially if you dont die to him) Papyrus never has the intent to kill, he doesnt even bring you to Undyne. He of course willingly spares you (in genocide and pacifist) so its always wrong to kill him
My answer to whether you’re good or bad on neutral
Yesn’t
7:00
I think one part of the rationality to this fight is to think more about Toriel's motivations. Just like Napstablook, even though you can't really tell at first, Toriel isn't really coming at Frisk to kill
Even ignoring her avoiding killing you when you're at low health, her dialogue before and during the fight say it as well: She's trying to discourage you from leaving
Which is not a good look for her either, but she also firmly believes Frisk will die on their way to Asgore or to Asgore himself. She wants Frisk to turn around and head back up into the house, not to kill them.
And then also adding in the fact that when Frisk is at low health, Toriel's attacks get weaker, and when Frisk is even lower, Toriel just plain goes out of her way to aim her attacks off to the side to avoid hitting them
Still not good to be holding Frisk against their will, but, outside of the constraints of the game, killing her is a bit much. (Unfortunately there is no "Just beat her down and walk past her unconscious but still breathing body" option, lol, though I guess something like that would make it too easy to avoid tough decisions)
Edit: There's also the idea given through the intro to some battles that some Monsters aren't *actually* fighting you? I forget which ones in particular except for Shyren, but sometimes the flavor text talks about how the Monsters are minding their own business and just wander up to you. . . Honestly it's really weird, but yeah, those enemies it's probably better to spare
But the Royal Guard? Nah, waste them, lol. Dust them all.
2:47 the characters KNOW there are resets but dont remember exactly what you did, flowey is most likely just numb from how many resets he did. Counting sans would include mettaton, toriel, temmie, asgore, actually just everyone. (Also there IS a flee option to run from enemies)
no they don't, minus flowey as she can also remember the past. (sans dialogue is bc of the face, so he assumes it was bc he's too pro.)
however, sans is aware of resets ("timelines starting and ending")
Good critical thinking. 👍 Here are my contrasting ideas:
• Whimsun clearly looks like they fight Frisk reluctantly rather than willingly, so Frisk should run away instead of fight. Whimsun would realistically be punished with containment rather than a death sentence.
• If Frisk only attacks against Napstablook until the end of the battle, Napstablook says that he was lowering his own HP to make Frisk feel better. This implies that Frisk's attacks were doing no damage. Considering how Frisk was only trying to move Napstablook and is should be obvious to Frisk in-setting that their strikes weren't physically do anything (because they can feel their own strikes whereas we as players only view), there's no evidence that Frisk attempted to kill Napstablook.
• In the case where Frisk is at low HP against Toriel, Toriel deliberately avoids harming Frisk when it's her turn, which would prove to Frisk that the fight isn't really one to the death. If the fight would reach this point, it would make it only justified to harm Toriel, not kill her.
• I think it's not justified to kill Papyrus in any case considering he only ever tries capturing Frisk and he is kind of a pushover in doing even that. It's only justified to harm him.
• I think it's reasonable for Frisk to run away when Monster Kid hangs on the edge of the bridge, because rescuing him puts Frisk in danger of being attacked by Undyne. At that point, Frisk has seen how versatile and skilled Undyne is with her spears. It's more so Undyne's responsibility to rescue monsters, and Frisk leaving would make Undyne have the incentive to prioritize saving Monster Kid over attacking Frisk.
12:13
Unlike Papyrus, Undyne wants your blood.
So glad there's someone bringing nuance to the discussion of Undertale's morality, it's been absent for far too long, and clearly by Toby Fox's own intent. You actually changed my mind about Toriel, and it caused me to see something I didn't see before: Toriel doesn't ever kill you, and not only doesn't seem disappointed if you kill her, but actively wants you to "fight or run away". I think that, with her endless years weighing down on her, she's attempting assisted suicide.
The situation with Undyne may seem cut and dried, but it's a bit more interesting than that. It's clear she has a large amount of popularity, and that what she says may be taken as infallible. We can also assume that she's said similar things to other monsters. Obviously what she said is blatantly false, but that sure isn't obvious to the other monsters, and if she goes to fight Frisk and doesn't come back, the monsters will be grounded in their narrow-mindedness and false viewpoint tenfold. I'd argue this isn't just politically good, but that you're morally obligated to dispel deceit where possible.
I actually think you're morally obligated to strike Asgore down. He's murdered 6 children, and as such deserves the death penalty. No amount of repentance can justify those actions. You might say it isn't Frisk's place to execute justice, and in an ideal world that'd be true. But who's gonna hold him accountable? The underground is largely anti-human to begin with, and all of them love Asgore. This is the only chance for him to get what's come to him.
That's a good point about Asgore. It also makes me think more about how he obtained the souls. I'm no lore expert so I don't know if there's a lore-accurate answer, but Undyne could've possibly murdered the children too. Pretty interesting comment and something I would not have thought of otherwise.
@@WyvrnOnYT It's implied that the humans fall down in long stretches of time from each other. Toriel says Frisk is the first one to fall down in "a long time". This seems pretty subjective, but we must remember that the Dreemurs' species never dies of old age, so her perspective of a long time is likely much longer than ours. Either way, Undyne wouldn't be alive, let alone in a place to kill humans. Additionally, if you choose to play dumb during her fight and let the first attack hit you, she'll repeat that attack, trying to make you understand how her gimmick works, and telling you that: "I thought if I beat you like this, it'd truly show how strong monsters could be." This implies that only Asgore has killed humans, since he's clearly leagues above the common monsters in more than just lifespan, and even if it was the previous captain or another royal guardsman that killed one or more of the humans, Asgore is still to blame, he still gave the edict that every human that fell into the underground should die.
7:28 Toriel practically encourges you to kill her... Then drops her defense like 5 hits away from what you'd expect to be the finishing blow.
See, here's the thing, once you beat regular enemies to low health you get to spare them. That's it, well done! You won, the opponent's down. You can just walk away now. But no, you *choose* to kill, even though the more merciful option is available and it still fits the self-defence narrative.
Of course, it doesn't apply when you accidentally kill them in one hit.
In my opnion neutral is is ok, It's self defense for monsters like Undyne and muffet, and while small monsters don't deserve dying (most don't even realise you're a human), a small child could accidentaly kill them in self defence.
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Better than the people who say GENO is justificable, even with Papyrus, Maddy and Mk sparing you, you chasing monsters for hours, not letting them go while yhey ead for mercy and you always attacking on the first turn, meaning you are always the one to start fighting
I was thinking of what route I would do if I was in the underground, and it endup with me realising I would die to Muffet or Mettaton, but ignoring that.
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If I was in the underground what would I do? Fight them...? Spare them...? Neither, I would just run from every encounter, monster want to fight me? Run, Napstablook is crying? Run, the dogs are after me? Run(1 is blind, 2 are dumb, 2 just care about the smell), bosses like Toriel would be harder, but I would just need to go out while she's sleeping, papyrus wouldn't kill me, so even if I couldn't run away he would do that thing if you lose 3 times, and undyne spare method is to run away in the first place.
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With would endup with me dying on muffet stuck on her webs or with mettaton in that elevator, and even if I attacked monsters, it says is mostly on bases on intent, and I'll probably be more like "get away" then "I want you dead", so I don't think I would accidentaly kill anyone.
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But what I am meaning to say is, some people say stuff like "why do you need to be nice to people that attack you?", but you don't need, you can run, you can attack untill you defeat them and let them go, you can scare monsters away, you can explain their attacks hurt you, you don't need to try getting along with them, just don't pick murder as your first option on peoples who are way weaker than you.
I guess another point is, what neutral run it is? A aborted geno? Killed one single monster at the beggining? Killed 80+ monsters while not activating geno?
@@ViniciusDiasissyI think you don't remember your debate with ultimate Capper,
@@jevilsugoma1743 who
@@ViniciusDiasissy that troll face pfp guy in the video called "Undertale yellow all bossesmmmm" something like that, can you help with something I wanted to talk to that guy but mssges keep getting deleted what about you tell that Ultimate Capper guy to check my about me
2:50 Technically Asgore knows about Resets too so you're wrong.
One thing I'd note, if you get to the end of the muffet bossfight, she'll opt to spare you once she finds out that the fight is just a misunderstanding, and at that point it's morally wrong to kill her.
I think toriel depends on how well you play after you fall to 2 hp it becomes very clear that she doesn't want to kill you so it can be up to debate
Don’t you dare touch my Guinea pig bruh
I get where the videos coming from but I feel it misses one of the biggest parts of undertale. I see the first couple monsters that can’t be spared immeadietly being fine to morally kill. But as soon as Frisk dies once Frisk would find out that she can’t truly die. This makes killing a monster from then on the easy choice to spending the extra time finding out how to spare one. The main point would be: if you have infinite time and infinite lives is it morally correct to kill something when you know it’s possible to avoid doing so?
It is never morally correct to purge a papyrus.
He can't even kill Frisk, he just captured as I'm sure 200,000 different comments have said.
But what they haven't said is that papyrus... uh... papyrus is just too cool a dude to justify killing...?
the ending where you almost kill everyone, leads to sans just hating you.
Something to mention about Toriel that makes this a harder decision is that while she does attack, she actively avoids killing Frisk. Once you get low on health, her attacks avoid you. You have to actively try to die for her to be able to kill you.
One of my leadt favorite things about undertale is theres not enough hateable characters wich means the game rarely trys to push you to kill in any way ut doesnt challenge your resolve. And the one super hateable character (Alphys) isnt killable
lmao. True lol
Realistically, How (If you don't already know the rest of the plot, which invalidates killing anyone really (For in game, moral reasons, not external reasons)), is Alphys more hateable than Undyne?
Bro cannot handle morally grey characters 😭😭😭🙏🙏
Can't kill Alphys Mengele in any route, makes me sad :
Jerry
what i feel about papyrus:
If he spares you and you feel as if he cannot be trusted (IF you have not been captured yet), its i guess ok to kill him..? I mean idrk.
If you fake out papyrus, that's morally wrong, obvi.
If you get captured once or twice and then he tries to spare you when the battle is almost over, i feel like it would not be moral to kill him, after all, he does heal you and doesn't kill you. And also the fact that he seems genuine.
If you get captured three times and then papyrus spares you, i feel as if a random man came up to me and started attacking me and then putting me in a shed with the intention of trapping me, 3 TIMES. (Even if you are being healed i dont feel as if it justifies the whole thing) i would NOT trust him, like what if he just captures us again.
Ik sans tells u hes harmless, but also again, hes a total stranger, both of them
Also papyrus is willing to harm u in the multicolor puzzle due to him allowing you to be endangered by all of these things: electrocution, piranha attacks and fighting monsters without consent.
considering you can literally flee from almost all fights, i think it wouldnt be morally correct to kill most of them. Self defense is way less broader and lenient than the common sense (in the sociological definition) makes people think. If there's a option where no one dies, it isn't morally correct to use the option that someone does.
"He's a nice guy aside from the whole 'I'm gonna take your soul' thing he's got going on." 💀
The thing is that you can't kill a robot, but you can kill a monster. You still get execution points because you're kinda still distancing yourself from the mosters.
i like pacifist because i don't want to do bad things, even if "it's just a game."
My first playthru of Undertale, I killed every boss except Papyrus, though I would have spared any boss if they had decided to walk away. At the end when Sans was explaining Exp in the judgement hall, I was like "I mean, it was all self-defense, so I don't feel bad" lol.
Gotta say, this was an interesting video. I would love to see you do more morality character play through analysis with other games. Good job man!
2:48 Asgore actually has minor awareness of these resets. When you die and tell him you died to him before in a pacifist route, he nods his head sadly. He can’t remember entire resets, but he can remember your deaths.
1:09 As someone who dosen‘t have a guinea pig. I see this as an absolute win. (I subbed tho)
💀Thanks for watching.
7:50 i would like to point out that you can refuse to hurt Toriel and then kill her right when you are able to spare her which she gives unique dialogue about how you hate her that much to attack at her most valuable. This does put Frisk at a different light because they are intentionally playing with her feelings.
When it comes to morality it just depends on the individual players intentions and knowlege on the game because of how alot of choices can be explained to simply being oblivious.
It’s so funny that he says that killing is justified so casually 😂
i recall mettaton saying “i have no desire to kill humans, my only desire is to entertain”
so he doesn’t truly have a thirst for human blood. Alphys lies to you and enlists mettaton to torment Frisk so she can save them throughout Hotland to gain Frisks favour.
That being said, he agreed to so I guess?
Would the player be justified in killing vulkin seeing as how it is just trying to help you.
To add insult to injury to the choice to spare or kill Asgore,
I believe on the third time of Flowey interruping his Spare, Flowey lets you talk to him, and Asgore kills HIMSELF!
So even if you did get to spare him, it was still going to be tragic..
Very truamatizing for a kid I'd imagine
Killing Undyne, Asgore, and most deffinitley Flowey is entirely justified since these guys are the only ones with a known body count.
Uhh, you said Papyrus can kill you in his bossfight... the boss is hardcoded to NOT kill you, only bring you to one hp then end the fight, putting you in Papyrus's garage. I'd say that this changes quite a bit about the whole encounter, because A. He goes out of his way to not kill you, B. He tries his best to give you sufficient living conditions and C. If you were to fail the fight five times he will let you leave in pure peace, which further shows he is too naïve to believe that Asgore or the royal guard would harm you (he believes in friendship to that far of a degree) and quite frankly he is too pure in intention to actually be considered evil in any sort of way.
Many commenters have already corrected me on papyrus' bossfight, yes.
9:30 you can’t die to papyrus he brings you down to one and hides you in his shed
I recently watched About Oliver's let's play of Undertale, both his neutral run and pacifist run, and if Frisk loses to Papyrus enough times, (Frisk doesn't die when they "lose", he just locks them up in the shed, not even tying them up LMFAOOOO) he gets tired of repeatedly fighting Frisk and locking them up and eventually just lets them go. So in my opinion, killing him is completely unjustified here.
I also want to say that that method of getting through Papyrus's boss fight is something I've never seen before. Difficulty is truly subjective; I, and probably many others, don't find Papyrus to be a difficult fight at all, but AO had so much trouble with him. I learn new things about this game every time I hear about it.
I feel like it isn’t that unjustified to leave monster kid. Undyne is faster than us, an adult and is the same distance from monster kid than us. Up until this point, she’s only been trying to kill Frisk. If there was a killer who’s been chasing you down now at the other end of a bridge, I don’t think it’s too wrong to run away even if someone else is in trouble
To be honest, I think the only reason I spared Flowey after his Omega fight (when I had Undertale at least...) was because when you think about it, it would just make him suffer more.
Think about it. In the genocide run, he mentions to you (Frisk, not the reader) that he did _everything_ he could think of doing to every monster in the underground. Killing them, getting answers out of them, likely verbally abusing them as well... (among other things I don't really want to get into), he eventually got bored with it all.
On top of that, he basically gets the last laugh when you kill him, since he says he knew you had it in yourself to be apart of his mentality of "kill or be killed." Am I really gonna let someone get satisfaction from that after trying to kill me? No.
...then again, I doubt Frisk would think about that when dealing with Flowey on their first run.
justifying killing toriel by saying she challenged you first is ridiculous, she quite literally cannot even kill you😭
Toriel can kill you, but you have to go to the attack, because when your health is low, the attacks start to avoid you.